Bermuda could be a role model for the world on seniors' health according to Age Concern executive director Claudette Fleming.

Yesterday, Health Minister Nelson Bascome announced that seniors could expect full health insurance coverage by April 1 next year with the implementation of FutureCare.

When this newspaper met with Mr. Bascome last month he indicated that actuarial studies were being performed to better understand what FutureCare needed to provide.

These studies will now be conducted by 13 local and overseas insurance experts who were asked to give the Ministry of Health proposals, including costs for the delivery of FutureCare, by April. The Budget yesterday revealed that FutureCare would be run through a private contractor.

Currently when a person reaches retirement they have few options if they cannot afford the insurance programme they had when they were employed.

One basic option is the Government's Health Insurance Plan, HIP, which provides four visits to the doctors a year, $1,200 in prescription benefits and costs $173.84 a month for seniors.

Ms Fleming said she was ecstatic about the information and looked forward to the implementation.

She said: "Well done, well done. I am ecstatic, but I guess the proof will be in the pudding once we see the deliverables.

"At the end of the day when you put your money where you mouth is, it works. Who knows? Bermuda may be a role model for the rest of the world."

Right now HIP can cost the Government $90 million a year and still not provide everything seniors need. No information has been given, however, on how FutureCare will be paid for.

When the Premier unveiled the plan in December he also could not put a cost on the initiative, but said it would be funded through contributions from employers and employed adults aged 20 to 64.

Also falling on the shoulders of the working adults is the five-percent increase in pensions and allowances for seniors announced in the Budget yesterday.

In order to cover this increase, Social Insurance Contributions will increase by 6.75 percent starting in August 2008. The last pension increase of 4.5 percent, from August last year, saw the basic contributory pension rise from $826 to $863 per month.

Finance Minister Paula Cox has said previously that it was the seventh rise in the PLP's nine years in Government, compared with pension increases every two years during the 1990s.

Promising more information about how much FutureCare will cost and how it will be paid for in the next few months, Mr. Bascome said he would keep the initiative in the forefront.

He said: "I am pleased to report today that the development of FutureCare is well underway. FutureCare will be a health plan for all citizens of Bermuda aged 65 and over and will ensure access to effective, safe, coordinated, and patient-centred health care."

Mr. Bascome explained that the insurance product will cover all seniors for the rest of their lives, who should then be able to use any participating provider on the Island. It will not depend on economic status and those on the programme will be able to choose their doctors and other providers.

He added: "FutureCare will ensure the dignity of our seniors who have given so much to this country."